The Legendary War with the Great Destroyer
Lightning tore the night’s darkness apart, briefly displaying the raging battle below in a stark relief of black and white for anyone who dared to stay and observe. The smell of ozone mingled seemingly effortlessly with the metallic tang of blood. War cries, drowned out only by the loud crashing of the thunder. The electric atmosphere charged the air to the point where hairs were raised and breathing was a chore. No rain had fallen yet, and possibly it would not come until its pure essence was needed to cleanse the earth from the horrors of this night. The warring factions below paid no heed to the rage of nature around them. Unusual allies had banded together to ward of this abomination that threatened to wipe them all out. Old scores were temporarily forgotten, now was not the time for quarrelling amongst themselves. Dissent in the ranks would surely bring them loss, and losing… No! Losing was not an option. If they fell here, everything would be lost, nothing would be left. What else can one do when all of creation is at stake, but fight? Those who had rallied in defence fought with a desperation that was almost palpable. It was ugly, it was unfair… and many were left wondering in the heat of war… how had it come to this? It had started small, so small in fact that it had managed to escape anyone’s notice for nearly a century. Things simply… disappeared. Nobody noticed it disappearing, because its existence had neatly vanished from memory as well. The mortals went about their days, sometimes plagued with this niggling but fleeting feeling of forgetting, which was easily brushed off. Eventually bigger things started to disappear. More than once the Gods of Law would find Taltufa quarrelling with Time over the disappearance of a distant star. All of which Time would deny taking. The long memories of Gods were a lot harder to manipulate into forgetting than those of mortals. One by one, the Gods started to take note of what was happening. They investigated what had vanished and found nothing. Not a nothing that still carried the faint imprint of what had been there. No. Where once there was something, now was simply a void. It was a swirling pool of non-matter that sucked in all light and energy around it. Initially, the issue was dismissed as being non-pressing and the Gods put it from their mind. Aoife was the one to raise the alarm, when she realised more and more of her children seemed to be erased from existence, weakening her dramatically. The Gods finally came to a frightening realisation. The nothingness was eating away at creation itself. By this point however, several worlds had already vanished within the void. A frantic search for the culprit followed, yielding results in what the Gods considered a short amount of time but still took several generations for the mortals. The monster swallowing the universe was hard to look at, none of the Gods felt that they could look too closely at the sheer nothing of its features. Many likened it to a bottomless abyss, eagerly awaiting the chance to swallow its victims. In light of its actions they named it; the Great Destroyer. While many of the Gods were busy searching for the source, a few dwarven deities tried to halt the corruption caused by the void left in the Great Destroyer's wake, and were subsequently lost to it. Moridan, grieving the loss of some of his kin, called on his remaining brethren and subjects to rise up and fight the beast. He pleaded with his fellow Gods and Goddesses to stand with him and end this threat. Gruumsh and The Red Knight, both ever eager for a fight, rallied with him. Corellon watched the God of Orcs step forward and refused to be outdone by their eternal rival. They too gathered their forces and pledged the elves to the cause. This threat was so severe that, in a show of unity that was never seen before or since, even Ahart and Hekativa agreed to stand together and fight the Destroyer. One-by-one the other Gods and Goddesses gathered their forces and joined the army of Creation. Only a few did not participate; Bellior and Nessen were both considered far too young to join the army and fight, while Aoife had been weakened to an alarming degree. The three of them were forced to sit on the sidelines and wait while the others fought. Meanwhile, cowardly Lollth hid herself to safe her own skin. They marched on the Great Destroyer, meeting them head-on for that faithful battle. The war raged for several years, tearing apart the plane on which it was fought. Hekativa’s presence kept the atmosphere in turmoil, while Ahart’s sheer force of will kept the plane together enough to provide a stable battlefield. Those who fell to the Destroyer’s attack were all consumed by the void. Bahamut lost its sight and front leg during a frontal assault, his sacrifice giving his sister Tiamat just enough time to narrowly escape being dragged into the void. Her survival cost her dearly though, as the Destroyer swallowed her wings. In the heat of battle, only the God Vecna was to be collected by Time. They had perished under mysterious circumstances, but the war prevented anyone from investigating it. After nearly a decade they had wounded the Destroyer enough for it to flee, powerless, before they could finish it, dragging several planets along with it. In the wake of its flight, there was finally time to take stock of their personal losses. Many of the mortal companions that had stood with tem, had fallen during battle. Humans, Half-lings and Gnomes appeared to have been completely wiped away from mortal memory by the all-consuming hunger of the void. Moridan’s screams of anguish filled the ravaged plane, for he had found himself the sole survivor or the Dwarven Pantheon. In his rage, he gathered up his few remaining subjects and charged after the Destroyer before anyone could stop him, intent on revenge. Gruumsh, finding himself with a similar, but not as complete a loss of family, roared in anger. Flames of hate filled his heart as he vowed upon his blood and bones that he would find the Destroyer, and if he could not vanquish it, he would imprison it for eternity. He swiftly followed in Moridan’s wake, followed by many of his orcs and dragging his young daughter Nessen with him. Anyone daring to stop him from taking her was snarled at, “she is mine and I will do as I please with her. Corellon Larethian, had dragged Lollth out of hiding while this took place and looked upon her in disgust. They promised Hekativa and Ahart that they would enforce punishment upon their sister, her webs would capture the Destroyer and hold them captive for eternity should they not be able to finish it off. Corellon promptly gathered most of their elves and their young child Bellior. Lollth was locked in shackles and forced to follow as the last two elven Gods set off to catch up with their orcish and dwarven counterparts. In the aftermath of what became widely known as The War, many things had to change to heal the wounds left behind. Aoife was given free reign for a while to recover what was lost, the damage was so severe that she had her hands full for centuries. Once the universe seemed to be healing, many of the Gods tried fruitlessly to find the worlds that had been dragged away during the Destroyer’s flight. But, much as the Destroyer itself and the Gods that had followed it, they had vanished without leaving a single trace. Eventually, new gods made their appearance; amongst them Trouble, Hal and The Muses, and the names of their missing brethren became nothing more than a memory. Time and Aoife both noted something interesting not long after The War ended. The mortal races changed rapidly, adapting to the worlds as they recovered from the destruction left by the void. The elves left behind by Correlon stopped aging They had achieved true immortality by receiving a shard of light from the elven deities lost in the war. However, they paid for their immortality with the ability to reproduce, since a race that cannot die does not need to multiply. As a result, to murder an elf became a crime punishable by death. To protect their small numbers, the elves retreated from the mortal realms. They become aloof and powerful enough to be viewed as minor deities in their own right. Similarly, it was noted that the orcs left behind by Gruumsh stayed largely the same until the appearance of Hal. Hal’s presence influenced the orcs to become bigger, stronger, smarter and more sophisticated. They too withdrew from the mortal realm, keeping to their own planes of existence. Ahart and Hekativa were sat down by their daughter Concordia and they all agreed that the losses of this fiasco had been too severe to be allowed a repeat. The leaders of Law and Chaos vowed that they would not wage outright war on each other again, instead they would use others to reach their goals for them. ---- The War had been hard won, but so long ago that it has all but passed from mortal memory. However, there is a stubborn rumour living amongst the people of the universe. They whisper that the Great Destroyer is still out there, slumbering, regaining its strength. Waiting for the moment where it can return and devour all of Creation.